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Tag: Graphics Drivers

Since I installed ‘Kanotix / Spitfire’ on my Hewlett-Packard laptop, which I now name ‘Klystron’, I have enabled OpenGL 3.1 Desktop Compositing as part of its Desktop Effects. Kanotix has generally been based on KDE, which is a high-powered desktop manager under Debian / Linux, and has always bundled this as a build with the standard ‘KWin’ desktop manager.

I know that as an alternative to KWin, it would be possible to have a Debian system that has ‘Compiz’. But Compiz really breaks things. Compiz is also the Desktop Compositor that offers windows which flame when they are closed, and many effects that are much fancier than what I currently have.

But if the user selects OpenGL 3.1 Desktop Compositing with KWin and KDE, we generally obtain the “Wayland Compositor”, and one effect which is already offered, is that of 4 virtual desktops forming the faces of a virtual, 3D cube that rotates, with the windows on each virtual desktop potentially standing out in front of each cube face, and offering translucency, as the user specifies.

I have always wanted to have that, while I feel that fancy effects for closing windows represent distractions instead. So the rotating desktop-cube seems just fine for me.

The windows which explode when closed are an effect that works fine on my machine, and that I believe also uses a Geometry Shader.

And then, the fact that this configuration is stable, presents me with another reason, to stay with the graphics drivers that I currently have selected. Because if I was to switch to the ‘fglrx’ drivers, conversely, I might make unstable, what was stable.